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A Merc SL500 believe it or not, that is the only picture I have of it! And a whole load of bikes.

2019...

And a whole load more watches, an old Phoebe (as opposed to the young one above) and a fat Chester.

Edit: the pictures have a date on them, but it's wrong. If the date was right, then Chester would be in the pics as well and the merc would be a different one, the MG would have been gone and so would the Ovlov.

The day to day cars have been downsized a bit, mainly due to the cost of fuel these days, the bike is smaller as I don't need another 175mph missile and would rather have fun at more sensible speeds, I can't explain the scooter really.

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2009 was incidentally the year I joined Autoshite, in order to try and sell my MOT'd AX GT5 for £175 but got no takers:

Seen here with its replacement, which Mrs_Jon found for sale in a small car sales lot in Hull. Was a great car!

Saab 9000 2.0 LPT manual bought in 2007 for £1000 off Ebay sight unseen, when I was 26 and fancied an upgrade from my mk4 Escort 1.4LX, bought for £225 in 2003. This became Mrs_Jon's within a few months after my Escort I'd donated to her became a bit crap. I'd obviously had my fill of large cruisers, as I willingly replaced this with the AX above!

1983 Cavalier estate, one of the very first made and owned since new by my parents. Terminally (at the time) rusty by 2009....

...so this was sitting in a council lock-up (about £20 a month, IIRC!) ready for a project that never came about before I moved to NZ in 2010.

Lastly, my Imp, 1 former owner before I got it in 2002.

Saw the road for a couple of years then languished in Mrs_Jon's Aunt's garage, before being put back on the road 6 days before my wedding in 2009, which was fortunate as it was my wedding car! Sold to M'coli in 2010, who I think still owns it.

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Mrs_Jon's daily. Proven very reliable, which is probably down to the former owner, who only drove it for 55000km in 11 years.

What the Clio replaced. Knowing I'd never get another 205 GTI 1.9 for less than a grand like we did with this, we kept it. Currently being lent out to my cousin as it's a little surplus to requirements. That's his 1970's camping trailer and just visible is my Mondeo, which will shortly reach 380000km.

1979 VB Commodore, sat patiently awaiting a rebuilt 5 litre V8 Holden motor to be installed, which replaces the Nissan LD28 straight 6 diesel it formerly had, which itself replaced a 3.3 Holden 6. REALLY need to pull my finger out with this one, as it's bloody ace. The Visa GTi is STILL here and I've had an utter guts full, so am looking for a suitable person who can have it. Any takers on here?!

Once finger has been pulled out sufficiently to sort the Holden, it'll then be applied to getting this on the road. Currently has a Nissan LD28 also installed but it's unproven, so the one from the Commodore which I used for several thousand KMs will get put in instead. From a financial perspective, I'm glad I bought this when I did, so I'm not worrying about this laying about.

Finally, I managed to right my previous Mk2 Cavalier wrongs by bagging this last year:

1983 Cavalier SRi, imported from the UK to NZ in 1986, so one of only a handful of known Mk2 Cavaliers over here. Does need a little bit of fettling here and there but in an enjoyable way, so a worthy replacement to the Visa.

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I can't quite remember which of these I had 10 years ago as I owned them close together so I'll take you through the salient points of both:

2009

2003 Honda Civic Type R.

This was a distress purchase and wasn't really that nice. Prior to this I had a Megane F1 R26 bought brand new as I was young, daft and still living at home. I wanted to move out so sold the Renault - a man from Stoneacre dealer group rang me in work and basically said he needed to come buy my car as he'd just sold it. So he turned up at work later that day, having transferred the money, with a clio I could borrow for a week to get to/from work. Hence dire need for a car. I'd seen a Clio 182 advertised at a very dodgy place in Halifax (I think it was the pre-cursor to *that one) so went to have a look and found it had been punted up the arse and badly repaired. However they also had this, it was ex-lease, high miles (about 85k I think) and scruffy, but it had AC and Satnav which were both options. Bought it as I just needed a car, paid about £6200 I think. I only kept it about 6 months as I found I didn't really like it, but in that time, refurbed the wheels, put 4 tyres on it, had the dentman go over the whole car as it was like Father Ted's Rover and did some other bits. Oh, and the satnav was bust. Sold for about £5700.

1991 VW Golf GTI 16v

This was a really nice example. The previous owner had done all kinds including swapping the bottom end for the 2.0 Audi block and I bought it as I wanted some money back for a house deposit. It also had mega rare factory fitted (working) aircon. Paid about £2200 I think which was A LOT for one of these at the time. It was being sold on G60 steels which I thought (and still maintain) looked shit, so I wanted the BBSs. Only issue being they looked like they'd been in the sea for the past few years and had 4 chinese tyres that didn't hold air for more than a day. So naturally, straight away that meant 4 new tyres and a wheel refurb which was even dearer as I had the rim polished (ooh-err). It had some small rust bubbles on the passenger doors but instead of just living with them, I found 2 replacement doors and had the whole side painted. The radiator let go and then I had a right time finding the right one as cars with aircon had a different rad. Got one eventually and then the aircon condensor gave way so had that fixed. I got rid after about a year as I was living in a flat and had no where to do any spannering and it always wanted something. Then when selling it I found absolutely no one wanted to pay anything like what I'd paid, struggled for about 3 months and ended up selling it back to the previous owner for about £1600!! Fucking great investment that was.

2019

2009 Alfa Romeo 147 Ducati Corse

Well anyone who's read the thread in the Modern section will know that my purchasing skills have improved not one bit in 10 fucking years!!

No chod at the moment as I'm now a full time student so have to be sensible (although I don't really know how sensible a purchase you could call the above!)

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^^No, the two Regents (the maroon and cream ones) belong to someone else. I could have used less confusing photos but I liked these as they show that I'm still mixing in the same circles. The two Regents are ex Southampton City Transport 353 and 361.